rUuo^^ yinr. 1870. 



/L/V^ 







Class t_E_4_7. 



7t 



SPEECH 



OF THE 7 *- / 



HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 



Delivered at the Great Ratification Meeting 



KEPUBLICANS, 



HELD AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 



Thursday f Nov. 3, 187'0. 




NEW YORK : 

Evening Pos? Steam Presses, 41 Nassau Stbeet, cob. Liberty. 
1870. 






\i 









SPEECH 



HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT. 



You, my fellow citizens — the busiest, tlie intensest people 
upon the face of the earth — whose pressing avocations of to- 
day crowd out the memories of yesterday — need often to be 
reminded of what " you yourselves do know." 

In 1824, the great Henry Clay of Kentucky was Speaker of 
the House of Representatives. He was the ablest orator in 
the Democratic party. In that year the people failed to elect 
a President — Adams, Clay, Crawford and Jackson were all 
candidates. Neither one had a majority of the electoral 
vote, and it fell upon the House of Representatives to choose 
the President. In a caucus of the dominant party, Wm. H. 
Crawford of Georgia was nominated, but Mr. Clay, with his 
powerful influence, went over to Mr. Adams who was thereby 
elected, and Mr. Clay became the Secretary of State. 

From that time onward through a period of twenty-eight 
years, the great Whig party flourished. Clay and Webster 
were its giant leaders. 

In 1852, the mission of that party was ended ; its work 
was done, its fight was over and its army was disbanded. Out 
of the fragments of the Whig part}'- — out of the Free-soil party, 
out of the Liberty party, out of Democrats who opposed the 
arrogant pretensions of the slave power, out of deeply re- 
ligious men of all parties, who resisted the spread of inhuman 
slavery — arose the EepubHcan party, which took shape and 
name in 1854, and whose first great success in 1860, was the 
election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. 



But ten years of inile, and half those years of civil commo- 
tion or terrible war ! Years full of sorrows, which pressed 
the life from many hearts, and sent to untimely graves so 
many of your kindred. Years in which through faith and toil 
and prayer and suffering, the nation was saved, and the foulest 
crimes that ever cursed a christian people, were " burned and 
pui'ged away." 

Has the party which did tliis Herculean work performed its 
full mission '? is it ready to disband its forces,— to turn over the 
glorious fruits of all its labors, to be enjoj^ed, wasted, or de- 
stroyed by those whose hands are yet stained with the blood of 
. your own sons ! 

The Saviour tells us, that, when the unclean spirit is gone 
out of a man, he wanders about seeking rest, and finding none 
he returns unto the house from whence he came out ; and if he 
tinds it all empty, swept and garnished, he takes with him other 
spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell 
there ; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. 

This foul spirit of slavery and rebellion, you have driven 
from your house ; and you have washed out his loathsome, fewl 
"irt *• stains, with much blood. He has wandered through many 
places, seeking rest ; but finding none, he will surely return to 
the house from which you drove him ; and if he finds it all 
swept and garnished and we stand uncovered in the hall, ready 
to receive him, he will enter in with others more wicked than 
himself, and dwell there, and our last state will be worse than 
the first. 

The spirit which has found no rest, and now proposes to re- 
turn and take possession of your well-garnished house, has be- 
gun in earnest ; its minions are numerous, bold and active. It 
can find no rest : — it never will rest. It begins with high de- 
termination, zeal and energy, and desperation, but in success ; 
it will leave no art untried, no labor neglected ; it will succeed 
if it finds none but faithless servants, or jealous inmates, or 
greedy plunderers, or disappointed seekers, or craven cowards 
at the gates. 

Pardon me while I turn you to the history of the past, that 
you may read the future. " That which hath been, will be 
again." For more than fort}^ years the Congress which was 



elected two years before the presidental contest, has determined 
that contest. And now, a new House is to be elected. Within 
a few days we shall know whether the Congress which continues 
through the term of General Grant, is Republican or not. If 
it is Eepublican, then you may be reasonably sure that the 
next President will be a Republican ; if it is anti-RepubUcan, 
then you may reasonably fear that the next President will be 
the humble tool of the Rebel Power, swift to do its biddiuo- 
ready as they have promised, to set at naught the amendments 
to the constitution which favor liberty, and ready to recompense 
the slave-holder for his liberated slaves. 

Do you think that the members of the late convention 
which was governed by rebel chieftains, have radically changed 
since then ? Not at all. The same men generally, and the 
same spirit precisely, which ruled the last, will rule the next 
Democratic Convention. 

Let us look at this question in the light of common sense, 
and of recent events. 

Last week the State Agricultural Society of Georgia held a 
gi-eat fair at Atlanta. When Hon. Benjamin Yancey, President 
of the society came, he found the old star-spangled banner 
waving over the congregated people, and he ordered the hated 
flag to be pulled down ; and nothing but fear of future con- 
sequences, it is said, kept their dusty feet from trampling the 
abhorred ensign in the mire. Last week in this very hall, 
eulogiums of unmingled praise were pronounced over the Rebel 
dead ; and our younger children are puzzled to know whether 
Lee or Lincoln was the worthier patriot. Last week, at 
Alexandria, close by the capitol of the nation, a public recep- 
tion was given to one called the " Great Ex-President Davis." 

These are but a few of the many indications of what has 
already begun. 

Just now, there is dissatisfaction felt by a few Republicans, 
1 dare say. It is always so. Two years before the re-election 
of Mr. Lincoln, Seymour carried New York ; but in 1864, 
when the people had to face the real question, they forgot 
their differences, and redeemed the State. 

It is not given us to know the future ; a kind Providence 
has veiled it from our eyes, and no wise man would lift the cur- 



6 

tain, if lie could, whicli God's hand has drawn over the stage 
of our destiny. But, through reason, and the history of the 
past, we may fairly predict what is hkely to happen. 

We can plainly foresee that the Congress now about to be 
elected will be Republican ; not in the ratio of two to one, but 
by a fair working number, which makes a far stronger adminis- 
tration than a two-thirds majority. 

When the legislative branch of the government is so numer- 
ous that it can pass laws over the veto of the Executive, the 
selfishness and vanity of abounding power is sure to cause 
disturbance in the harmony, and thus weaken the vigor, of 
administration. We can foresee that the Eepublican party, 
chastened and consoHdated, will grow wiser in some respects ; 
will more carefully consider the internal revenue, the tariff, and 
the navigation laws, and adapt them to the intelligent wants 
and the real interests of the whole country. But we can also 
see that success does not spring up from the ground, and that 
without the use of means, our desired ends will not be accom- 
plished. 

You are soon to elect not only a Governor, Lieutenant- 
Governor, and other State officers, but you are also to elect an 
entire Congressional delegation. This, therefore, is a very 
important canvas ; it bears directly upon national issues ; it 
may determine the next Presidential election. Your candi- 
dates are all good men. Gen. Woodford as Governor, and 
Mr. Kaufman as Lieutenant-Governor, would secure the best 
administration to the State. One had an excellent record in 
the war : both have an unsuUied reputation in civil life. No 
honest man can doubt that, if elected, they would faithfully 
carry out the principles and the wishes of the Republican 
party. No honest or chshonest man can doubt that the op- 
posing candidates, if elected, would, to the fullest extent, carry 
out the principles and the wishes of their party. To which of 
the two parties can you most safely entrust the government of 
the State ? — to that which has proved true to the Union ; or to 
that which is to-day in close alliance with the enemies of the 
Union ? 

We judge a tree by its fruits. None but poison fruits ever 
j^rcw upon the old slave-tree ; and fruit from any branch en- 



grafted on that stock, will smell of death and taste of blood 
for many years to come ! 

The Kepublican party, during its short career, has done 
collossal work ; but its labor is not ended. It is now in 
its prime of power ; its greater work is yet to be done. It 
has torn down the decayed old fever-breeding tenement, and 
cleared away the rubbish. It has laid the new corner stones 
upon the rock of humanity, justice and equal liberty ; and 
now the building of the structure requires more skillful hands, 
more wise forecasting minds, than it required to tear down the 
ruined edifice, which, incongruous and falsely reared, was 
tumbling to its fall. The soldier nobly did his work ; he will 
have the undying gratitude of patriots of his own time, and 
" the thanks of millions yet to be !" But the work of the Re- 
publican statesman has but just begun, and the Eepublican 
mission will not end, until the statesman's work is finished. 

Expect some blundering in the beginning, which a generous 
people will forgive, to a party which is honest in its main 
purpose, and which has such a record of great deeds, and 
heroic success in the saving of the nation. Be quite sure, 
that the Republican mission is not ended. It is the Demo- 
cratic party, which untrue to its earliesr history, and to the 
honest convictions of its best men, has lost the confidence of 
the people, and must perish as a national power. The only 
chance which it has of electing the one it nominates, is to 
nominate a Republican. But I don't think they will nominate 
a Repubhcan. I think they will only nominate from the 
BepuUicaii State of Ohio, its present Democratic Senator — an 
able man — not destined to be elected. 

Let me give you some of the elements of my confidence. 
And, first of all, the people as a whole, desire what is best 
and right ; and their instinct is wonderfully true in the discern- 
ment of what is best and right ; and when they come soberly 
to consider the effect of restoring to power the old slave- 
liolder, the rebel, the opposer of the war and the hater of the 
Union, and those who would a thousand fold, have preferred 
the rebel General Lee to the patriot General Grant, they will 
not hesitate to vote again for the great general who won heroic 
victories over the enemies of the Union, and saved the nation 
in its day of peril ! 



8 ■ 

Next, the entire emancipated vote will be given for those wlio 
proved the negro's friend. During the entire war, not an 
instance can be named, where fear, or hope, or gain, or danger, 
could ever make the bondsman swerve from his fidelity, or 
betray a soldier of the North ; and it is all folly to suppose, 
that the freed slave will vote for his old oppressor. 

Next, the country will gratefully remember what the Bepub- 
lican party has done ; that through weariness and every dis- 
couragement ; through difficulties vast ; through long and 
desolating war ; through dangers and dissensions at home, it 
overcame all ; it saved the countrj^ entire, made liberty real 
and universal, preserved our glorious heritage of freedom ; pre- 
pared the way for our rapid development in wealth and great- 
ness — gave a safe and uniform currency to the whole nation, 
and equal rights and equal laws to all ; destroyed the inhuman 
monster, so long our reproach, our blight, our terror and our 
curse ; and ushered in the day, when it was no longer statutory 
crime to teach a poor benighted soul to read the word of God ! 
and made it no longer possible, under the Union flag, and 
under the very dome of the capital, for brutal ruffian to tear 
the child from its mother's arms and sell it to eternal slavery ! 

Next, the country will remember at the fitting time what the 
opposing party has done ; it will remember its opposition to 
the war, its sympathy with our enemies, its readiness to receive 
with open arms the chiefest leaders of the rebellion ; allies of 
those whose cruelties to our prisoned soldiers shocked human- 
ity ; allies of those who planned and executed those cold 
atrocities unknown to christian war; they will remember 
Andersonville and the Libby ! 

The country will remember that when the rebel General Lee 
died, every anti-Republican Journal, from the Pacific coast to 
the furthermost corner of Maine, deplored his loss, as that of 
a pure patriot, and a christian hero, whose memory should be 
cherished, and whose name should be handed down to our 
children as one most honored in our history ; and they will 
remember that Secretary Boutwell was assailed through those 
journals, because he did not wish to have raised in mourning 
for Lee, the flag of the Union, which that general had dis- 
honored and betrayed ; every hater of that flag was a sincere 



admirer of Lee, — his memory is sacred in their love ; and his 
virtues have been exalted through the party press, as far above 
those of the martyred Lincohi, or the great Union General 
Geo. H. Thomas, who was fi-om the same State as Lee, and 
who was Lee's superior in every virtue, and every heroic 
quality that can ennoble man ! Turn me to a Democratic 
Journal, even in the loval states, which spoke of the dying 
Thomas, with one ten-thousandth part of the love and ad- 
miration with which the same journal spoke of Lee. The two 
generals were both from Yirginia ; both were educated at West 
Point at the national expense ; both had registered a solemn 
oath to defend the Union, its flag and its laws ; one, before the 
war, was of high rank in the armies of the Union, petted and 
trusted by General Scott ; great in place, and influence ; able, 
if determined, to have averted this fratricidal war. He violated 
his solemn oath, deserted his old friend Scott, betrayed the 
Union which had fostered, educated and made him ; trampled 
in the dust the old flag which had waved so gloriously over 
him in Mexico, and bathed his recreant sword in the blood of 
his countrymen. 

Thomas, also fi-om the South, a much younger man, and 
under far gi*eater temptations, was true to his country, to his 
flag and to his oath. Thomas dies, having hved true to 
honor, to patriotism, to eveiy christian virtue! No half-mast 
flag was raised for him over Democratic journals ! No parad- 
ing of his great virtues and lofty patriotism appeared in Dem- 
ocratic prints. There is deep meaning in this, and it will not 
be forgotten. 

" Tell me where thou dwellest and whom thou lovest, and 
I will tell thee who thou art." All this will be remembered 
when the soldiers' graves are decorated, and on election day, 
for one generation at least. 

This ovation to the shade of Lee was a " got up " affair : It 
was a cold political contrivance ; there was no grief in it ; a 
circular letter was sent round to many respectable and to some 
eminent men, to get them to join in the demonstration ; their 
patriotic refusals, which will appear some day, upset the plan, 
and changed the whole progi'amme. All men respect heartfelt 
sorrow ; but the mother who mourned for her children, and 
2 



10 

the old father, who wept for his son whom the treason and the 
sword of Lee had slain, did not come to Cooper Institute to 
parade their grief. A public demonstration of this kind is 
made to honor the acts of the hero's Hfe, and the principles 
for which he contended. In this case, it was to honor the acts 
and the principles of Jefferson Da\'is and of Robert E. Lee. 

Every man well informed in public affairs knows that 
the entire Rebel element of the South will heartily join 
in electing any Northern Democrat who may be nominated ; 
confident, as they are, that he who may thus be elected, will 
be under the absolute sway of the same confederates who 
dominated over Tammany Hall in their late convention. I do 
not say that if a Northern Democrat were elected President, 
he would wish to disturb the peace of the Union by violating 
the amended Constitution, and the re-construction laws ; I dare 
say he would earnestly desire the prosperity of his country ; 
but he would be utterly powerless for good, in the hands of 
those who elected him. The great party which puts the 
President, in power is stronger than the man; so must it 
always be, in a government like ours. Careless observers mis- 
take the public mind ; they meet with criticising men who are 
not personally satisfied ; who want something different ; who 
always do want something different ; who are never content, un- 
less all goes as they direct, nor even then. I heard all, and much 
more of this talk, in 1862, about Mr. Lincoln ; and yet he was 
triumphantly re-elected in 1864. I hear much less of it in 
1870, and I predict that General Grant's election in 1872 will 
be equally triumphant. I know that the confidence of the 
people is strong and increasing ; they believe in his honesty, 
his foresight, his firm purpose, his real sympathy with the 
people ; in his silent, latent forces, equal to any emergency ; 
and in his luck and unfailing good fortune ; they will vote for 
him again, as will all the more intelligent men who wish well 
for their country. It is of the utmost interest to the Repubhcan 
party that this question of the succession be settled ; only a 
year from next May, and you make a new nomination. 
Nothing so much distracts and weakens the party in power, as 
to be casting about for the next Presidential candidate. I re- 
gard the question as already settled ; your enemies are trying 



11 

to make you think tliat it is not settled. But it is settled. If 
General Grant is not the man, who is he? Name me any 
six, out of whom one can possibly be selected, as against 
General Grant, You cannot name them ; and a President of 
the United States does not spring up in a day ; he must have 
made a record. The people know that Grant was a great 
general in our war ; that he led our brave soldiers to difficult 
and to glorious victory ; that by his great qualities he preserved 
the unity of this proud nation ; they know that his latent pow- 
ers appeared when most needed, and that they will again ap- 
pear in all their determined vigor, when necessity demands ; 
they know that he was inexperienced in politics when he came 
into power ; they know that he means to do right, and that he 
grows wiser by time ; they believe in him ; they trust him ; 
they are determined that he shall have a fair chance ; and if 
everything does not go exactly as they could wish, they wisely 
prefer " to bear" the little ills they have, than fly to others that 
they know not of ;" and if God spares the life of General Grant, 
he will be the next President of the United States ! 

Let us look straight into the face of this business, my country- 
men : the most tempting place of power now upon the earth, is 
that held bv the President of the United States, brief in its 
tenure, to be sure, but dazzling exceedingly, in the distance. 

In too eager chase after this receding rainbow, many of our 
best Statesmen have stumbled to their ruin. 

No Southern Rebel can soon hope to be President : — No 
Northern Democrat can ever hope to be President, save 
through the aid of Southern votes. The confederate vote will 
be given to the Northern Democrat only upon one condition ; 
the condition is, that the South stand behind the recovered 
throne, and wield the sceptre as they will. If that day comes, 
your new amendments, your new guarantees of Freedom, your 
re-construction acts, and your vast financial system, will be 
trampled into dust, and the debt incurred in subjugating the very 
men thus restored to power will be scoifed and repudiated. Be 
not again deceived, ye who did not believe that civil war could 
come ! The brave men, the great judges, who gave liberty and 
glory to England by condemning a traitor-king and a corrupt no- 
bility, (on the return of the Stuarts,) died upon the scaffold, or 



12 

fled to this counti^, where they dragged out a wretched life in 
dens and caves of the earth. No one beheved that such could 
be their fate, when the great Cromwell died : Don't you think 
it will be safer at least to keep confederate generals out of the 
goverment during the present generation ? 

The southern demands upon the northern Democracy have 
always been absolute; when these demands were relactantlij 
conceded, the south threatened secession ; — when not luholly 
granted, they made war. 

The price of southern aid, is abject submission. Uninformed 
men think that the South must have changed, — that they must 
have learned something by their defeat in 1868. 

Not a bit of it. They had nothing to learn. They prefer 
the rule of General Grant, to any Democratic rule which is 
not entirely subservient. They say now, as they said to North- 
ern Democrats at the Charleston convention ;.i*Aw/, or we leave 
you to your fate. They despise the northern dough-face ; they 
respect, while they hate, the northern Radical, vfliojiglds for 
his principles. 

I have said thus much, because I wish now, at this stage of 
our history, to call the attention of the great party which de- 
stroyed slavery and baptised " Liberty and Union " with their 
blood, to the evils of distracting counsels, to the sin of wander- 
ing after strange gods, and of thereby permitting the cast-out 
spirits to return into possession of your re-constructed govern- 
ment, and thus to make its last state worse than before the war ! 
And one other word let me say : In politics as in war, there 
must be a leader, whose decision is final ; without it, there can 
be no success. The President is that leader ; he is patient in 
listening to suggestions — ready to take advice — but when he 
decides upon a course, all true men will cheerfully acquiesce ; 
this is the only way to success. With many commanders, and 
no general, victory was never won. Here Hes the greatest 
danger against which I warn the Republican Party. 

In the vast diversity of interests, the President has a most 
perplexing task. — Ten thousand men press him with almost as 
many different views. He must decide; — he cannot satisfy 
all. He will do he tbest he can. Sustain him ; and he will 
prove as wise in peace, as he was great in war. 



13 

The candidates whom your conventions have nominated, are 
all good men ; vote for them, if yon would retain your power ; 
elect them by honest votes ; neglect no honest means for success; ; ^ 
show that you still mean fidelity to that great party which un- ^-^^..^ik^t-Mj^ 
hrnmsA the ta|jie of four million slaves, and saved the nation 
fi'om dissolution and eternal disgrace. 



.b S 12 



